Carol's gazionth car crash, other bummers

Well I thought I would real quick post about this since news travels pretty fast and you all might hear through other people that you are in contact with.

I just got in a bad car accident again. Drake and Sadie were with me. At least they weren't hurt. I was, at least a bit, my arm has turned black and blue, the soft tissue is stiff and achy and lumpy, meaning that there is tissue damage and bleeding and stuff, My wrists hurt and my fingers don't move well. Not nearly well enough to play the pic tomorrow for BHoftheR. Bummer. I don't know if the other people in the car were hurt that bad. I certainly hope not. WeThere were ambulances swarming all over.

Of course this whole thing has brought out some pretty big frustrations. I have been having a hard time lately because I knew that I was getting to the point where I am not doing that well, just not that bad. This is where other people tend to start loosing patience with me. They do really well in a crisis but they don't really do well just over the marathon portion of it, as it is really a long haul situation I am dealing with with the sleep thing.

I always find it amusing what I think is good. In a way I realized during the veery first behavioral disruption episode when I first started thinkig I was going crazy I was THRILLED because I knew that I had had a lot of behavior in my past that wasn't voluntary and I really wanted a way to explain it to myself and other peopl. Meaning I had done a lot of things that I knew I hadn't done ON PURPOSE that other people had accused me of of course doing on purpose because a lot of people attribute the worst possible motive to your behavior instead of the best as I would expect that they would. That is what I try to do, because I find thinking bad things about people when I don't have to a great burden.

There were a lot of people, well not a lot, maybe one or two, that were previously close to me in my life that had really had a big problem with me for one or two things that I had done according to them that I didn't even remember doing. They probably thought it was evidence that I was a bad person when I knew that I hadn't done the thigs on purpose if at all, in fact I had no memory of doing them. It was some ridiculous thing.

One thing similar to what I am talking about happened on a day that I got in a wreck like today. After my wreck, and before, I was acting funny because going in and out of sleep is very disruptive. Have you ever woken up and you were very emotionally exaggerated and disoriented? That is what I feel like on these days. One day was at a chess tournament. A lady got mad that according to her I had 'stolen' her son's coat - right in front of her! MEaning I walked over to a chair, grabbed a coat from on the back of the chair, and put it on myself and walked away. I was sound asleep when I did this of course. I went in and out of sleep that day. Jacob had to come and rescue us from Salem that day, too.

The mother of the kid whose coat I 'stole' grabbed me by her hands (I have never been physically dragged anywhere by an adult since I was a child, fun fun) and dragged me to the tournament director (um, why the tournament director would care I have no idea) and started screetching at the top of her voice this lady STOLE my kid's coat! Yeah right. I want some ten year old's coat with some superhero logo on it. Mm hmm. It was very obvious that I was having a bad problem that day, but there was no stopping this lady.

Slade said lady, does it really seem to you from looking at this woman that she is doing ANYTHING on purpose, let alone stealing your son's coat right in front of you? It kind of begs a question about stealing. Stealing is behavior that by definition someone does illicitly. If I had no idea that I was putting on a coat that wasn't mine, would it really be stealing? I had no idea what in the world I was doing.

At the time we didn't exactly know what was going on. But that was right after a car crash like I had today. After my car crash today I was acting strange for quite a while afterward, probably because I was in some state of agitaiton about the car wreck, and partially because I was going in and out of sleep. But I was actually happy when I learned that I was definitely doing things that I didn't mean to do and that it was obvious. That way the people like that lady at the chess tournament and one or two other people, one of whom is actually pretty close to me or was, won't be able to accuse me of doing any deliberately dishonest behavior. dishonest behavior is behavior you are trying to hide. I didn't try to hide that. I had no idea what I was doing. When she grabbed me with her hands and dragged me to the tournament director, I said hey can you stop digging your fingernails into me, that kinda hurts? Slade asked her whether I looked like the kind of person that needed her crap. She has no idea what is even going on right now. He was trying to get her to admit that she was trying to get blood from a stone, but she couldn't see it.

He said look lady, what do you want from us. She has no idea what she is doing. If you want to make her pay, here. He took out four twenties from his wallet and dropped them on the ground in front of her and walked away. Classic Slade move that no one else would think of but him. She started screaming again, this time screaming at Slade, because he had done the unforgivable, he had called her on bad behavior.

Bad behavior is emminently forgivable in our culture. All you have to do is say 'I didn't mean it, I was going through a hard time' and you can get out of anything. I don't think that it really should be that way. For example, as my behavior tends to make people feel like they can be really rude and say whatever is on their minds, kind of like people look at each other with that raised eyebrow look when there is a crazy lady on the bus, they tend to reveal themselves to an extent that they don't really feel comfortable with. Behavioral problems tend to make people feel that they can treat you really rudely and it is justified. People with behavioral problems, for example, don't deserve to be treated well according to a lot of people I know, because they have done some pretty rude things in return.

But when this first all started shaking out I thought to myself well at least all of the confusion about whether I am doing things on purpose will be cleared up the more wrecks I get in. Full head on car collisions are not usually just something people do when they have behavior or personality issues. My problem is medical, I think it is very clear. At least I should hope so, I really am done trying to prove it. Hee hee. Nobody has serial car collisions just because they are in a weird mood. Or because they are doing something mean to someone else. There are a lot of emotional and behavioral problems that are secondary to serious sleep disturbances (meaning once you have sleep disruption the other things follow, but the real problem that is primary is the sleep problem). When I have had sleep and am feeling good I don't do any of this. My problems are at least curable, whereas there are problems I don't have that aren't, so I should be grateful I guess.

It is hard to say whether I would without sleep problems because I have always had a sleep disorder my entire life. And in fact, it is a miracle that I act as normal as I do (consistent high performance on my IQ test, relatively high functioning in certain arenas, not all admittedly) considering

1. I get no sleep
2. I have had a lot of secondary distress over the past few years to deal with after the various huge traumatic problems that I have had to go through after these majorish events.

What has made both me AND Slade have actual REAL AND GENUINE depression (oh you guys know slade has problems with depression, right? He has his whole life. It is just now getting to the point where he admitts it but I guessed it as soon as I knew what to look for. I didn't always know what chronic depression looked like until there was all of this other discussion, now it is pretty obvious that he has been dealing with it in some form from way back. Not fun.)

Sorry need to start over over the past few years related to this has been our serious amount of depression that has an actual anteceedent, which has been OTHER PEOPLE'S less than affirming behavior. Of course Jake and Stephanie have been troupers, available at a second's notice like they were tonight. But in terms of the official channels that exist at least through the church (we have many nonmormon neighbors that have been fairly reliable tho) but those who were officially assigned to us through their capacity in the the church to caretake us (VTs and HTs), we haven't been really especially impressed. Most of the people in our lives have fled for the exits.

We haven't been able to keep HTs or VTs because they couldn't even deal with the irony of the whole charade of saying 'if there is anything we can do for you guys' when our entire lives were falling apart in flames around all of us.

I shouldn't say that considering I know nonmormons read this blog and everything. There have been some people that have specifically made the comment about me that I am 'not nice to the church.' I don't know what I would do if I had a sufficiently good attitude about it. Bear my testimony about how impressed I am that my new VTs come once when they are first assigned to me? I am sorry but I think I will conjure a testimony about my VTs if they come back, only. And I am waiting to be able to. I have had VTs assigned to me three times in four years. I had repeat visits ONCE. Yeah that was the extra year. (But anyone reading this blog ready to pat themselves on the back about how right they are that the church isn't true should be aware that we are still hanging in there. There would be a lot more that we would have to go through to scare us away. We are in it for the long haul, baby. No they can't take that away from me.)

I guess the saying goes that the church must be true or X would have destroyed it years ago? X being whichever you can substitute, the members, the missionaries, the whatever. So we in the church have never particularly thought that the reason this operation seems to be going strong year after year was that we were perfect. The gospel is perfect and all that, but we who try to live it are not. In fact I have a few posts here if you wade through my old ones that are designed at trying to unravel some of the mysteries of Mormon culture. Mormon culture is distinct from the gospel because there has been a particular geographic area where members live annd that regional flavor gets associated a bit too strongly with Mormonism. I think that is unfortunate because several things result.

1. There ends up being an in group and an out group for church practice. Meaning if you speak Wasatch English and have Wasatch dialect you are automatically associated with being more righeous even though many of us who have had to go to Wallmart in Orem on Sunday oh and I am sure that no one that WE know would get a email ring going about Slade's going to the store on sunday even though he wasn't brought up that way, etc. We don't have anyone THAT bad that we know of I am pretty sure that most of our family knows that we have probably had kids with fevers on Sunday in Orem or been staying in hotels on sunday here, etc. I think that most of the people in our family aren't like that but

2. When there get to be a comfortable church culture, they tend to forget that Christ narrowed down the ten commandments to two. You can live your religion with all of the specific commandments if you WANT TO, as LONG AS in the process you demonstrate your perfect ability not to offend anyone else. Because the first commandment and the second, to love others, are pretty hard to live while just trying to LOOK righteous. You can't just LOOK LIKE you are trying to love your neigbor. If you can, it is pretty much just the same as doing it. You can't fake being nice to someone! At least you can, and I invite everyone to fake being nice to me as much as you can. That is why insincerity as a character trait shouldn't get as bad a rap as it does. Being nice when you don't really feel like it inside is what people should do. There isn't anything wrong with it. And being not nice when you don't really mean it isn't possible either. If you act not nice, then you act not nice. There should be a venn diagram here somewhere... The only remaining possibility is trying to fake being nice when you don't mean it and really sending the message through other means. That is very bad. It is when you act nice for the benefit of third parties that are paying attention and try to claim nice behavior when you are really trying to be mean to someone through subtler means.

So if you have the being nice to people thing down, then you can live a more complicated moral system if you want. It is easy to engage in complicated religious ritual, though, for reasons other than the first commandment, loving God. That should be the reason that people live religious ritual. The first and only. It shouldn't be to make one's self feel righteous. So people could go to the temple three times a day and if it is to merly live religious ritual for patting one's self on the back, it availeth nothing.

That is why they added the second commandment onto it. Because people can say that they do all kinds of things for the first reason, when they really don't. They can quilt and can and avoid caffinated beverages and all kinds of things. But if its for kudos, then you don't get credit for it. That is why I think it is very significant the culture that Christ lived in. I think he picked a good time to come because the way the people lived when he was on the earth is illuminating. Christ came at a time where there were lots of people living lots of religions with some pretty harrowing requirements. There were a lot of people that we act so smug in saying that they getting themselves to heaven because of how righteous they were being, it was a tower of Babel situaion.

They were operating with the assumtion that by eating or not eating specific foods, and methods of dress, sabath keeping, etc., one can prove righteousness. Obviously Mormons have the tendency to create all of those specifics in our culture, and then judge others by it. Of course the second part is the bad thing. None of us that were raised not drinking caffiene think it is any particular sacrifice to not drink caffiene. Except we occasionally congratulate ourselves about the fact that we are able to avoid caffiene while other people aren't. Things are cultural, and there really isn't any reason to feel superior to someone that wasn't raised to be in this culture. It is easy to be a cultural Mormon once you are one.

Just go to a Walmart on a Sunday in Orem and you will see lots of people who any cultural mormon would feel very superior to. We have yes unfortunately had kids with fevers on sunday in Orem and also been staying in hotels here). Not like I think that anyone is getting ready to get the email rings going, I think that our families are pretty good about not being judgmental. I really doubt that we would have anyone sending alerts when

But adhering to a rigorous list of thou shalt nots doesn't make someone able to be a better person. Of course if all of those shalt nots are done for the first great commandment they are, but many times they are to be like Paul cautioned in his letters. Paul said people listen, you can live your religion if you want. But living a complicated system of religious ritual and shalt nots is only ok if you have the second commandment down pat, too. You can't fake the second commandment. You can't live the second commandment for selfish reasons. Either you love people and show charity toward them and avoid judging them, or you don't. Actually, fake it if you must. Be insincere about it if you must. God doesn't really care if we really mean it, he expects you to be nice anyway. Actually, isn't that what being a 'nice person' is in the first place, doing things that are specifically for the purpose of being kind to others, even if we might not really want to?


I shouldn't say all of this in public. I will get accused of not saying nice things about the church. Of course I am not really sure what I should say. I wish I could make it seem like our official caretakers were doing there jobs. It would be much more lifeaffirming for us if through this thing we had discovered that people were better than we thought they were. We haven't. Not yet. But we are still hanging in there with our testimonies. We have way too strong of testimonies to make bad VT stats discourage us. I think actually the bishop got his radar all alerted to it. I think Slade said something in a joking way about something. It would have to be joking, because Slade doesn't ever even HAVE bad feelings about ANYONE much less ever voice them. Slade is truly without guile. It wouldn't matter what anyone did to him, he wouldn't get upset about it and he wouldn't cease to be charitable. It wouldn't help his depression, because he tends to go inward when someone does something that's not nice.

Well anyway, that is kind of where we are with all of this. I wish it was better than I can with confidence say it is. It isn't good any of it. We are really having a hard time with life at the time being. But one thing that I was telling the kids today, was that we are at least learning some things that are good. We have learned what an amazing guy their dad is, even if he personally is having a hard time. Ever since I have known him he has been prone to bouts of depression and really bad anxiety attacks. He tends to take the world on his shoulders and never cuts himself any slack. But the kids and I have really learned his capacity for kindness and understanding. We have learned the extent to which he can selflessly take care of all of us in a way that if I hadn't been ill, and if we hadn't had logistical and financial problems we wouldn't have learned. If there had been all kinds of people lining up to do their jobs and help us out we might not have ever learned that about him. If I hadn't bee sick we wouldn't have seen the extent to which he is really amazing.

A lady that gave me a ride to the store today, a perfect stranger, told me that her husband suffered similar problems to mine. In fact exactly. And the were suffering really bad because he couldn't keep down a job. We aren't doing that well with money because of how expensive life has been for us, with me crashing cars and not paying bills and getting services shut off and all kinds of things happening there are definitely money problems. But at least he keeps his job and holds things together pretty well for us. All by himself. And even with his own problems with depression and anxiety (again that no one would know about because he doesn't make his problems public, in fact you could torture him with knives and he wouldn't even tell you his problems, much less milk them for sympathy) Slade is all about saying and doing things to make other people feel better, not to have them help him.

Drake and I were both remarking about how much we have learned about their dad through all of this. Unfortunately we will probably learn more before it's over, but at least we are ready to look on the bright side of it.

Communist Cuba as a toilet. Good metaphor.

There is an article on TED where an African economist George Ayitty describes his native continent as a leaky boat, that as much as well-meaning American academic elite want to fix with "Swiss Bank Socialism" will always continue to leak.

http://blog.ted.com/2007/08/premiere_george.php.

He made a lot of good points, one of them was that these nations in Africa and South America are actually resource rich. The United States when it was collonized was a third world nation WITHOUT these resources. The only resources the United States had was the capitalist model that it was organized based on. When this land started absorbing the globe's poor and oppressed people four hundred or so years ago, it had nothing. It had no gold like was rumored. It had no spices. It had no easy to grow crops. It had no bursting mines. It had no overflowing oil wells. It was a very harsh, unforgiving terrain with nothing much to generate naturally itself except for war, disease, pestilence and hardship. The wealth that later fills the coffers of philanthropists that save TODAY's third world was GENERATED. By CAPITALISM.

This guy picks up a metaphor that was similar to the one Fidel Castro used when he took over Cuba. He knew that even with a heavy dose of oppression and clamp down on opposition, communism does not work as a common man's Utopia. It must be an open system. There must be another system to deal with Cuba's poor. Their mentally ill. Their criminals. The terminally ill. Even with machine guns and socialized medicine no Cuban utopia can handle the suffering that opressed centralized economies will generate.

So this man describes Africa's socialism as a leaky boat. Castro describe's cuba as a toilet that must regularly be flushed. Onto the shores of Florida. Even as heavily flawed as Cuba is and as many millions as have to flee to this country, there are many others that come here on the rafts that Castro himself sends when he flushes the toilet. Very similar to the principle of the Soviet Goulag, the actual infrastructure of communism doesn't even work as well as the very best example may work in theory. The very best example of communism that exists in the twentieth century, which is pretty bad, it only works that well because the United States is on hand (as much as those on the left hate this country for its inequity even if that inequity means that at least SOME people do well, as opposed to pretty much all of them doing terrible like in Cuba).

What would happen if Castro wan't able to flush the toilet anywhere? The United States, which is hated on the left for.... um, really it is hated because it proves them a perpetual failure, is the sewage system that is able to keep Cuba looking as good as it looks. With millitary government, with no freedom of speech, with central planning, the only reason that Cuba is actually able to keep even the base pretense of socialized health care or any of the things that the left holds up as a model of what they want the United States to be like in a limited distorted way is that Castro HAS somewhere to flush his toilet. That is why I find it so amazing that Castro has any fans at all.

What exactly are Castro fans, fans OF? The only ways in which Communist Cuba can be said to not be a dismal failure and oppressor of its people is the extent to which the United States, with a very small percentage of the resources that are generated by the excesses of the miracle of capitalism, saves their rear end. Otherwise the sewer that is communism would continually back up. There would be no where for it to go. So that is why it is so scary that these people would change the United States into a communist system if they could. They know that there would be no place to flush the toilet without the United States being capitalist. They know it, yet they still think there might be something salvagable in this dismal system. Clearly the only thing they think would change is their ability to be in charge. But that is the hubris that scares me even worse. They cling to the dim likelyhood that if communism is tried just one more time it wouldn't be as dismal of a failure with them in charge. They don't have any reason WHY they think that, they just do.

Chaim Potok had the best quote about communism and capitalism that I have heard yet. Capitalism is judged for its deeds; Communism for its dreams. Those on the left really don't have anthing that they want more than ending the resentment they feel toward others that win while they succeed. The deeds of capitalism, while all it does wrong is allow the vices of those who are given their own freedom, are so bad that allowing all of the actuall success to disappear in leu of what will be clear failure, but at least it will be FAIR failure where no one is required to resent another's success. That is clearly what people resent about capitalism. It is not that millions of people are ground up in the gears of a system that has never yet worked and no one has any reason to believe it will.

The reason why people will always be willing to give communism another shot is because nothing is worse to people who resent the United States than allowing it to continue as a testament that principles of freedom (doing nothing for someone but allowing them to take care of themselves) works much better than the best laid plans of those who would take away that freedom. The only way that enemies of freedom can get rid of the testament of their failure is to get rid of the United States. That is why nothing will be good enough until the United States is changed into the system that will need its toilet flushed. Even though they know there will be nowhere to flush it.

Evolution of the stay-at-home mom

I think that it has been great that I have basically been able to stay home and play with my kids all the time they have been small. Hopefully now that they are in school (at least if there aren't any more at the tail end here) I will be able to help Slade bear the burden of the bills. In fact I am hoping that my writing portfolio continues to accelerate in the income it generates so I can avoid the immense feeling of guilt I have at having caught a free ride off of his hard back breaking labor while I am home playing.

And my ability to do so is so new in the history of the world. Some people think that there is some kind of reference to stay at home mothering in the Bible or other scripture, but it wasn't even heard of at that time. It has come about in less than the last two hundred years.

The new ancient history of working women

Not that mothers didn't take care of their children. Well actually sometimes they didn't. In Tudor England, for example, poor people farmed out their toddlers until they were about three years old to wet nurses. Rich people did too, just different wet nurses. Most of these poor young babies died before their reunions with their parents. It was very sad indeed, for everyone. But people were struggling to even have a roof over their head and food on the table and they did what they had to do.

The origins of the stay at home mother had roots in the Industrial Revolution. That is when men started leaving the house to go to other places of employ in large numbers. There were some types of work that involved this before like seamen, military worker, doctor, courtier, etc. But for everyday income earners to leave in the morning and return home at night was a product of the rise of the factory in the 1800's. The reason that women didn't work in factories at this early time was not that there was any sense that they should stay at home. It was that men got hired first and there were very rarely enough jobs to go around to make women seem like an attractive employee.

But this didn't mean that women weren't busy contributing to the economics of the household. And this didn't just mean cooking cleaning and shopping. I think the example of Lucy Smith is a good one. She did as much farming as anyone else and actually made what was probably a higher hourly wage when she was able to do it when she painted those floor and table cloths for sale. That was clearly a job in every sense of the word for the early 1800's. She didn't leave the house to do it (not always, she did from time to time (leaving the kids at home to go work as a domestic worker on occasion) and to sell her cloths she would have had to take them into market since there wasn't ebay. These two types of work probably meant that she was away from home MORE than her husband, who oversaw the farm at home and would have had the young children doing farm apprenticeship with him).

But she definitely didn't get to stay home more the Jo Senior. Her boys left the house a lot but that was because they were able bodied enough to be day laborers, which neither she nor her husband were able to do. She would have taken domestic work as much as she could have during hard times, however, leaving very young children at home with other children or relatives. This was most likely what every woman at the time did. Extended families living under one roof and very young children left alone or with other children made it so that babysitting was always less of an issue when families were large and housing small.

Changing history of working women in the Industrial Revolution

The sense that women SHOULD stay home and not work was probably unheard until a bit later, at least not just staying at home for the sake of it, which would have seemed absurd. Like 'let them eat cake,' in fact EXACTLY like that. When the factories rose in the large cities men left the house, but when they could so did women and children. Women often sent their children to live with relatives or hired workers for years at a time when they were able to find regular work (in Les Mis Fontine's job was coveted and things turned upside down when she got dismissed. She wasn't rich before this but there was a sense that she had extras. She sent Cozette a rather extravagant wardrobe (that was sold off by her keepers) and she had furniture, candles and stationery, which were considered luxuries).

What really excellerated the concept that women were expected to stay home and not appreciably contribute to family finances were the two world wars in the twentieth century. Women started working in large numbers during this time to man factories, hospitals, storehouses and farms. At the end of the first world war women often didn't keep their jobs in the twenties not because they were expected not to but because they didn't need to. (Remember the relatively independent flapper girl? She often had a job and sometimes even education. My grandmother entered a university in 1918, graduated with a teaching degree and worked as a teacher on and off until she was retirement age, marrying at age 30 and only having three children. Relatively modern sounding.)

Women had relatively few children during the twenties and thirties and the ones that weren't heavily saddled with their families were able to work and kept the available jobs that existed over and above the returning men. So probably there weren't GOOD jobs available enough to tempt womein into the work force, but the economy was good enough that those that wanted to and had opportunities to kept their jobs and no on really said much about it. Poor women probalby continued to make informal contributions to the family income in the 1920s and very few womeon OR men had good jobs during the depression.

WWII changed things rather drastically. The whole pre-war and war era was brutal to the world economy and it took a while for things to get going again. Europe and Asia took ten years before they came back out of third world status, not even having a baby boom like we did, and so the united states didn't really even have a viable trading partner again for a decade. So when the men came back and the government didn't want to pension all of the veterans at 100 percent, the concept of moral obligation of women to stay at home with their children was introduced among the American population.

The notion that women shouldn't work existed before in some sectors of the culture, but in a different form. Mainly in pre world war era, there was still the sense that women who worked in the workplace with men were whores. It wasn't actually just a sense. It was stated openly by everyone from clergy at the pupit to government officials. The whole issue with birth control and Margaret Sanger, etc. was that Sanger thought that women should have the ability to control their reproductive system so they could support themselves and their families in the work place. There was not the argument in response to Sanger that women should stay home with their children the response was that the notion of women working and controling pregnancy to do so was obscene. Discussion of and literature on birth control was ruled by law to constitue obscenity.

Before the 1940s when women entered the workplace because they were needed, there was the sense that only women of loose morals went to work in factories alongside men. People didn't want their children taught by women teachers unless they were clearly spinsters or old women because of this prejudice; people believed that women who worked were loose and they were a bad influence on the youth. There was usually a flood of retired women into the teaching profession because most people accepted old women teaching because there was not a sense that they would be whores at retirement age.

But there was a bit of a problem after world war II because there was a wholesale virtual seduction of women into all maners of jobs because the economy needed them. The economy was much more highly industrialized after cars and telophones becamse prominent, making commuting to work and offices more of a practical necessity for many kinds of employemnt.

There was also the notorious baby boom, too. There were several reaosns for the baby boom and probably it is not that well understood. One of the things that caused the baby boom was the introduction of antibiotics to avoid puperal fever and hence a drastic reduction in death of children and women in child birth. Also the introduction of pain killers during child birth meant that fewer women avoided it than had in previous decades. Birth control became widely practiced for the first time in the twenties and thirties largely because women were able for the first time to successfully limit their families in other ways than death. But the surge in marriage and romance that the war generated (absense making the heart fond) combined with a new optimism that hospitals doctors and medicines could remove tragedy from the equation led to a new enthusiasm for families. This made a very practical situation that one could point to; making the need for women to be at home something that was very easy to point to.

So after telling women they were needed in the work force also involved dispelling the rumors about women in the working world being loose. Wholesome images of Rosie the Riveter assembling cars and tanks were proliferated not just to encourage women to work but also to make the public more accepting that these women were a positive presence in society and not to be feared and loathed like they had been before.

So by the time soliders from the War returned and needed their jobs back, the old prejudices against working women no longer worked. It was rightly viewed as old fashioned superstition to view women that worked in food factories or chemical plants were a step below prostitutes. There was actually some attempt to try it, even, and it had been to thoroughly devistated, thank goodness.

So there was a need for an introduction of a new prejudice to take its place. The women's place is in the home slogan was certainly not something from Adam and Eve, or any place in the bible or old fashioned society. In fact that notion is very modern. It is less than a hundred years old.

One of the easiest ways that you can tell as a historian what people are doing in large numbers are to look through church sermons and politician's platforms for prohibitions. If you read 'don't spit on the sidewalk' in a public ordinance there will be a very good indication there that people WERE spitting on the sidewalk. You won't see that in a society that never spits on the sidewalk.

So that is why the sense that women shouldn't work is a product of the 1950s and afterward, because that is when women first had the option to work outside the home in large numbers and men found them to be unwelcome competition for the types of work that they had before that been unqualified for and society had successfully kept them from being able to by notions that most of us find ridiculously offensive.

The sense of women choosing to not work for moral reasons is newer still. That is probably about as old as the 1980s when ET Benson said it to the church women. And it certainly is good counsel in many ways. I certainly believe that it is a good thing that we are so wealthy as a society that we can finally afford what is most definitely a luxury of the first world in proportions that are new to history. As I said, I feel completely indulged that i am able to enjoy my children's childhood with them. But whether I am doing something that women have always done since Eve is arguably historically inaccurate, whether or not I feel (as I do) that it most definitely SHOULD have been because of how great it is. Unfortunately as in many other ways, women have had too hard of a life to do this. They had to strap their babies to their backs and keep them in pens if they had them at home at all, as they had to get up and start dinner before dawn if they were to have any.

History has been brutal. The good old days in many cases were really never very good. Most of us get the opposite impression, that things are getting worse all the time, but this is clearly a way they are getting better. I am very grateful. The curse of Eve is over in more ways than one. I don't have to bear children in sorrow. Or raise them in sorrow. Just like my husband doesn't really have to much sweat on his brow to earn our bread, child birth and child raising is now quite a pleasant experience. I am grateful for the advances of my country and modern medicine that have contributed to that happy reality.

SUBECTIVITY: (Marriage mistakes many Mormons Make)

Long and Complicated. Skip. I just couldn't get the fun vids to post, so wait for those. But if any of you are bored and read long rambling stuff on the internet, which I know I do, then this will serve as much as some of it, I guess.

So there is this guy in or SS Gospel D class who used to teach it, and he used to do the same thing every single time someone disagreed with him and he couldn't defend himself. For ex, he said something about the W of W that someone disagreed with and he couldn't defend it without getting flustered trying (which he WOULD try first) he said that he had had a personal witness of what he thought to be true. His beliefs on tithing, a personal witness. (Don't you love that 'at least you can pay tithing 100 percent perfectly?' Ugh, not true! but anyway, not on topic, unless you only want to save yourself from burnin')...

One time he was saying that the Dark Ages was the period from Malachi to the NT when God wasn't speaking to the world. I pointed out that it was possible that other peoples with their own Scriptures could exist and we just don't know about them yet, that in fact according to FARMS, books will come forth from the dust, and people will at first discount those books, much like what has happened with the possible Book of Judas. 'Not Cannon' say others about those books just like they do about the B of M as a reflex. But in any case, that is a long period for God to not talk to people, and was he sure that maybe ther wasn't something else going on in some other culture? To that question, you guessed it, he had had a personal witness.

Later in private I asked him how then the Book of Mormon could have been written in this specific window of time (around O BC-AD the suposed Dark Ages) His feathers were ruffled, save he knew he had had a witness. I am pretty sure he doesn't read this BTW as is the case with most of the people that don't agree with me so it is the perfect way to not talk about things in a contentious way because the people that get offended self select themselves out of the audience, perfect. It is just an exercise, not an attempt at starting a fight with these people. But to me and Slade these things are FASCINATING and are very instructive about a lot of issues that are dead center to various disagreements about gospel and other topics, so it is a perfect way to explore these beauties.

The thing is that I am pretty sure that this one guy didn't spend too much time on his knees asking God about the timeline of the Dark Ages. Which makes it curious how he was lucky enough to get a witness to something that I really don't think he was even INTERESTED in, even though a lot of people with Ph.Ds and spend their lives studying this subject feel that they actually just have to figure it out and make a decision based on evidence. How is it that this guy just gets told and sort of votes? It makes me start to have an idea about how this particular claim functions in M Doctrinal discussions. In fact I am pretty sure many times it is subterfuge to basically declare one's self right via testimony and render any actual disagreement with logic or evidence meaningless.

Whith this person in particular he is very much in the habit of reflexively responding this way to punctuate any possibility that he would ever end a disagreement with someone like me or Slade (the horror to not just DECISIVELY win an argument with US), so he just dismisses us out of hand in this way) in any other way than he's OBVIOUSLY RIGHT even in the cases where it doesn't make sense.

Totally harmless, really, in these cases. I do not think this guy is any kind of threat. He is a curiosity to me and I never really think about any of the particulars of any disagreement with him at all. In fact even though sometimes I accumulate the reputation of being opinionated but most of the time I just state my own opinions out of the blue and people disagree with ME. I sometimes defend myself, to which I get the response that I am opinionated. I would like some day to ask them what they think I should do after people disagree or say something critical of me, but I am not sure it bothers me. I think having opinions is a good thing so if people think I have them I won't really worry too much. But here is what happens with him:

1. I make a comment,
2. he disagrees (and he pretty much always bends over backwards to disagree with ME, I often collect disagreements from people like Mike Tyson collects people who want to fight him in prison. I must wear a sign saying take a shot. But that's fine. Keeps me on my toes.
3. I might if I find it to be worth it and fairly straightforward and demonstrable to illustrate my point without making the person hostile and defensive (often too late) I make a feeble attempt at defending my original position in #1,
4. He very emphatically starts disagreeing with me and perhaps becoming agitated (this will attract attention at this point and look very curious). Like he saves this for me. It is very weird.,
5. I shoot one of the various ducks in the in the barrel like say Um the Book of Mormon was written during the time you claim that no scripture was writte, etc., or what about the part in the word of wisdom about food that you are none too worried about?
6. He claims having a witness of this truth or whatnot and declares himself right.
7. I say, uh, OK THEN. Why did we bother if you had always known bc God told you, sheesh!

Even though he almost tempts using this response to speak for the church with some pretty controversial ways. As a SS teacher claiming P.Marriage is surely destined to be an important part of the next life for all men is a pretty strong statement here, in fact I hate to repeat that here because it is fodder for the Antis. So Slade was curious. He approached him (in private, b/c it is like shooting ducks in a barrel and we don't want to humiliate the guy in front of the ward or anything or ruffle the testimony of the ward members, even though in fairness I should be willing to say that my OWN testimony is shakable with some of this garbage, because I guess it isn't infallible).

So in response to the Plural Question, he NO JOKE started flipping through his SS manual, and then said, you guessed it, "personal witness." One thing that is curious to Slade and me, tho is that if I really thought that I personally had had all of these witnesses from God (perhaps as a teacher it makes sense but at this point he was just a Jo Mormon as they usualy are when they say this, why in the world would I first try to discuss it logically, or for goodness sake why would I flip through a manual written by no one even with their own byline? If I thought I had had a witness I can't imagine how anything else including discussing it in SS would matter. But for some reason this usualy is a LAST RESORT argument with these people, rather than a first resort one like I would have thought it would be if they were really that confident.

This is when it perhaps in my opinion gets to the point where it is less than just totally harmless. Because I think it is important to look at how this reflex response really operates in pseudo-logical exchanges. I don't really think these people are trying to convince other people as much as themselves.

To illustrate, try to think of the last time that you heard someone in say testimony meeting discuss the fact that they were making some random career move or something because they had had some witness from God. People do this all the time. So often is like we were one of those groups that handle snakes or use Ouigai boards or something the amount of times this comes up in Sacrament meeting, even though I have a feeling that most of us suspect that it doesn't actually happen to OTHER people quite that often.

Possibly it happens to us, maybe people say to themselves but if someone claims as they do regularly that they felt that God helped them know they should pull over to a car shop and get their water pump serviced that it really happened that way? Do YOU actually even CONSIDER that it was really the CASE that they had had a this red phone to God? Now I am not saying that you for sure had to vote on whether or not it was true. I assume that it could at least be possible. BUt probably most of us think that it just occurred to them that they should service their car and that is the T Meeting version. Usually most of us just think that it is at best an impression that person has. And in fact I personally think that if we are using that kind of information in a public discussion it becomes much less likely that we have actually had a witness.

Let me explain. We are encouraged to only feel that that level of 'PR' (revelation) is for our own use, and possibly for the family UNDER our stewardship, meaning that we should avoid feeling as though we are privy to information about others or we get guidance for other people not under our stewardship. Meaning that we don't get revelation on whether OTHER people should buy two cars or one or whatever, just our own personal guiance, for our own purposes. So probably we would never use the fact that a guy in our ward had a witness about what was included in the W of W as any sort of evidence we would ever consider using to develop our own opinions, right?

I certainly never say aything in public or even in personal conversations that someone that is not under my own stewardship or responsibility for anything that anyone else would be supposed to consider. So that means that I don't get any vibes of any kind for anyone else or any doctrinal light bulbs going off that I think anyone would benefit from. Except of course by just thinking that something makes sense, and in that case I think that anyone has any idea that could potentially benefit them. But many of these statements are by nature deliberately anti intellectual, meaning they are statements about the truth of various things 'just because someone has a feeling that they are one way or the other. That doesn't reflect an inability to be intellectual it resists the NEED to even use intellectual faculties.

An example, for instance, is something that I probably never would talk about except for this discussion but it happens to apply, so I will assume that no one need take it seriously. And it could be that perhaps I talked about it when I was a young kid and first had my patriarchal blessing because I hadn't developed the sense of appropriateness about sharing that kind of info yet at that time in my life. When I was a teen and young adult I shot off about this as that is when I got my P blessing my mouth but I have tried to stop.

From a combination of my P Blessing and Slade's ongoing P blessings to me which all have a theme to them, and basically from reading the scriptures and prayer and just using what seems to make sense from an overall combination of all of those things taken together that it makes a LOT of SENSE that educating myself and others is how I am supposed to spend a significant focus of my life. This doesn't just consist of some ephemeral thing like a vague urge, like I just have a feeling that it is that way and I don't know why. It actually makes a lot of sense using a general perception that it would be a good way for me to contribute something that I particularly have to offer the world, and it is my talent and desire to do so and it also makes use of these talents without having my weaknesses detract. I can basically stay behind my computer writing and have it benefit in the way I usually do, meaning the 'wow that is fascinating I never thought of that before' that I often get, and don't need to have the fact that I am not good at showing up somewhere at eight in the morning say for a regular job or whatever detract from what I have to offer.

But this is not just a vibe that I might as well just get by crossing my legs and burning insense from who knows what source and following who knows what principles. This makes sense to me and Slade in my mind and my heart. I am actually good at these things, and enjoy them, get good feedback on how I seem to be helping people understand things that they are interested in on a wide scale, wider than if I just went to some mommy and me group and then probaby never really contributed anything. There is need for them that I can fill. So anyway, I know no one cares about that. It is just an example of something that I have always known, and slade as my steward has also known and felt that he was responsible for cultivating.

THe specifics have been vague, meaning I haven't been sure whether I was to continue to get another degree or try to teach school or what, and now I am at least sure that I dont HAVE to do that, which is a relief. Even though it is stll certainly possible all my kids are in school and I wouldn't have to do anything when they are home of course so there is little or no conflict anymore. And iy vould certainly fill a need since there are very few active LDS women with Ph.D.s and it would be a very good way to serve the church and make a difference in the world. In any case the specific phraseology 'spend my life in education of myself and others' is something that I feel VERY STRONGLY about and so does Slade. And we both make our life decisions taking it into consideration.

But I certainly don't expect that personal knowledge that Slade and I have (Slade being in a position of stewardship over me and thus sharing that opinion and encouraging me to work to do the right thing and develop my talents) to influence anyone else in their assessment of me or what I do with my life, because I don't expect them to have any way to assess that because it is for ME PERSONALLY to know, and pretty much to keep to myself except for the purpose of this rhetorical discussion. I still don't expect any of you to believe it because it isn't FOR you.

And if I were constantly going aroud saying things about what my witnesses from God were it would actually make me doubt that these feelings that I have actually came from God for strictly the puspose of directing my own life. If I instead developed these feelings and impressions very much for the benefit of other people and telling them things about what I thought God had told me I might wonder whether these perceptions were to influence other people's perrception of me and how tuned in I was to God. Thereofre I would suspect that these feelings of mine had a secular purpose oriented toward my own personal pride and self image and not anthing that was real and of divine origin.

It would quite literally be me taking the name of God in Vain to constantly burden others publicly with information about what I felt was my own personal direction that no one would possibly think was meaningful or likely even believe. God really doesn't waste his time telling me things so I can justify myself to others I am quite sure so I just am not going to try. I seriously doubt. So if I use what he says that way I would immediately suspect it as having questionable motives.

So why is it that people are so frequently telling others that they have the cosmic stamp of approval on their actions and beliefs if it isn't to make the other people think that their thoughts and beliefs are more credible? If it never actually makes other people believe that they are right or are doing the right thing? Because just as I said there is no chance that any of you are convinced that God really are convinced that I need to be educating people, so if I were to make a big deal out of telling people, why would I want to?

I actually think that it is more of an exercise in the person who says it convincing themselves that the are cosmically justified than anything, and that is where in my opinion (other a SS teacher speaking for the church on shaky doctrine issues but is all related), becomes a bit less than harmless.

The stamp of subjectivity, once it gets dusted off and used frequently enough for people to feel comfortable using it for anythng and everything, becomes very easy to use whenever and whyever people want to use it even when it COULD be harmfull. For one thing it tends to start substituting for what could at least be very good sense. I have heard more people than I would care to think about talk in T Meeting about witnesses as to geographical moves, financial decisions and job changes. It is as if we can't just consult a real estate agent.

Funny, some people seem less than convinced about the witnesses they say they have ironically. Someone was saying in our S meeting recently that they were 'witnessed to' about the need to sell their house so they can move into a different neighborhood that was better for their kids (and there are always lots of these all over the place every T Meeting) but they couldn't sell their house for more than they bought it for so they understandably became frustrated at not being able to do God's will for the sake of their children living in a bad neighborhod (mine, incidentally, yikes sorry kids).

Funny... if God is going to the trouble of telling them to move, wouldn't he expect them to take a loss if necessary? Would he only tell them to move and have them do it if it was a good move financially too? Hmmm....

But the stamp is handy. And versatile. And it tends to be used when there isn't the possibility of just finding out evidence of what the right thing to do. Like if someone is deciding what school to go to it seems like in Mormon circles it really isn't a proper decision making process unless they sit cross legged and burn incense, just thinking in terms of what is the best program or where you get a better scholarship or whatever seems plain out.

That contrasts to certain financial decisions, which Mormons will be very responsible about. For example I know people that if they are going to buy a blender they will scrutinize two years of back issues of consumer reports. But when it comes to decisions involving love or children or where to live or whatnot and there is the possibility of doing something that makes actual sense it just seems more handy to pull out the stamp. We don't use guages like compatibility or social science research or even prudence.

I tend to be the opposite. I don't really care too much about whether I buy a good blender. If I end up wasting my money on a blender it won't be the worst thing in the world because it is only money and I don't care too much about money. I am not a materialistic person, even my own mother says this about me unprompted. I certainly don't want to waste time worrying about money. Time IS valuable to me, though. So I just go into the store and cover my eyes and point to something. But when it came to the decision of who to marry I took a good six years making that decision because I couldn't trade that in as easily if it broke. Luckily I got a model with the best possible features for my needs because I took so long.

I will also credit my mother with good advice on that. I went through a stage where I was very impulsive about the whole marriage issue and thank goodness I went through a period where things didn't work out for me exactly like I WANTED them to with someone I dated. When Slade was on his mission and I was lonely and feeling unable to exercise the discipline over my life's plan like I thought that I should my mom pointed out that I was about to chuck a very good situation just to do the 'I wanna' option. I lucked out seriously that things didn't work the way I wanted them to at that point. I was saved from myself, though, only because if I had had everything work the way I wanted to I would have indeed married someone else. Thank goodness this guy wasn't normal. Then I would just be married to someone normal and not someone exceptional like I am now. But most people have the option of doing the thing that they wanna, and they just do it. Even though in my case I was probably saved from a very unfortunate situation of having a less than superlative spouse. And I am sure that if I had married this guy I would be telling a different story now, because people always think they did the right thing. But, well, phew.

What about people that don't - am I saying that they didn't also get a good model marriage? Certainly not, if they are happy with their marriage than I say fanastic. But that is a bit backwards logic-wise. No one including me is certain what the opportunity cost is in any one decision, meaning it is impossible to compare it to what else we might have done. If we do something risky like run a red light and make it through, did it end up in hind sight being a good idea to run the red light? Nope. We just got lucky. And with most things they end up ok and we make the best of them.

I think it is interesting that Mormons know that they are obviously not when it comes to marriage getting out back issues of Consumer Reports. I am not sure why. It is clearly much more important than with a blender. But for some reason with marriage people seem to be suggesting that the time spent deciding is inversely proportional to how important the consequences. I think perhpas they would argue that with marriage they think that God tells them what to do though. But why is it that they can't just ask God which blender to buy or which car? Why do they do so much homework when it is only money that they are risking? I think that the reason is that in cases where there is an intense flood of emotion about what the person wants to do like in love marriage or children there is the possibility to just think that emotion dictates what they should do. That doesn't happen in a blender situation. Though I think that God would be as likely to tell us which to do either way.

And it isn't like I am telling people that they shouldn't marry who they want. Of course not. They should go for it, as far as I am concerned. Of course I think people should marry who they want, but if it is possible to do that AND do it with a responsible timeline that precludes they are just being impulsive and getting a model of spouse that might involve buyer's remorse, why do they still choose rapid fire relationships? Why does it seem like to them it is always Do I marry this person RIGHT AWAY THIS VERY SECOND or do I NOT MARRY THEM? In my opinion that is not a real choice and they seem to make it seem as though that is what the fuddy duddies that suggest caution are saying.

Most of us if we were to admit what we think about most of the people who we know that get married to people within weeks that they don't know I suspect that we all know other people than us personally are just being impulsive and doing what they want to do, they just don't WANT to exercise caution. Again they think the choices are false. No one is saying don't marry the person if you are destined to be together as you feel you are. But no one is telling them not marry, it is only to not marry that person while it is at least theoretically possible that it is just an impulsive decision. No one looking back would feel that if they waited six more months to make it respectable they would have seriously missed out on something significant having been married for six more months than they ended up being. But what I think these couples are going through is more than just rushing things like most fuddy duddies like me claim they are. I go further than the other fuddy duddies and say that I am convinved having watched all of these couples over the years get married with irresponsible speed it is more than these couples just don't wanna wait, rushing is actually part of the appeal at least for some of them

That is certaily true that they want to get married soon(hence the stamp) but it is more than that. They specifically wanna get married in lightening speed without just taking a normal amount of time even if they had it to burn. Marrying in a responsible weigh the options fashion like choosing a blender is actually less desirable to young people in their twenties who if we compare them to what other people their ages are doing are actualy not averse to risk and thrill seeking, even though these very people end up saying not very much later on that they would counsel their own children to take more time, usually. At least their sons. Women get indulged in making impulsive decisions even though sons get encouraged to be responsible. (Hmmm.... I think I am going to do a paper on that). Bad news tho their sons won't listen to them. It isn't just that it is too hard to wait. I know how hard it is because I actually waited (just like the people that know temptation when they don't succumb, I didn't succumb to the temptation to marry quickly even though certainly I wanted to get married at least as much as other people because I had already waited a long time. I have had people say that maybe I just didn't want to get married as bad as they did. Yeah right. It was excuisite. so I KNOW it is agony. But it isn't NEARLY as much fun to choose a husband practically like choosing a good blender, it isn't exciting and thrilling, we don't feel like something really spectacular is happening to us that we are swept up in beyond our control in the cosmos and we don't get as much attention or buzz around the home ward for doing something boring and responsible and carefully planned. Even if that attention is a bit scandalous.

And of course we can see this in everyone ELSE that does this. I have a feeling that no one really believes that God is speaking to all of the other 95 percent of the Mormon couples getting engaged today that claim GOd is sweeping them away in a firestorm of predestined romance and therefore mandating their getting engaged before they actually get to know each other and married so rapidly that they are registering at Target before they know what if anything they have in common.

With marriage there isn't consumer reports, but there is prudence. Everyone has that first fight about a year or so after they start dating seriously. Slade and I weren't married yet when whe had that fight, so we were able to see how we weathered it so that we could factor it into our decisions. Of course we were teen agers so we could see clearly the reason to be prudent and not to give into what we wanted.

Not that it prevents everyone our age. I have heard some people say and I am not kidding that "some people just have the challenge of meeting the right person early in life," so what could the poor kids do? They wouldn't have CHOSEN to stay home from their mission or not finish school, but it just turned out that they met their dear wife when they were sixteen. Yeah right. Many sixteen year olds including me felt that exact same way about wanting to run off and get married, but I also knew that it was possible to meet the right person for me that young and not just immediately turn insane. I didn't chuck all of the other things I planned in my life just because I met my husband. I didn't need to. Meeting the right person should enhance good decision making not sideline it. It was a good time to develop patience and emotional maturity, and I did that quickly and painfully, but I knew that it was the only option. I didn't expect him to stay home from his mission just to be with me any more than he expected me to not get a graduate degree. With a little sacrifice of emotional indulgence and time delay on getting all of the things we wanted we were able to do all the things we wanted to do and knew we should do.

And I am not saying I did everything perfectly. We were way too young to get married when we did. People keep maturing into their mid twenties, and in my opinion it is always good to know who you are going to be spending eternity with rather than just guess because they aren't that person yet. And it is going to be good to know who you are yourself so you will know who you want. I remember being a young teenage girl that thought I wanted a boy that was totally sappy about me and made me the center of his world. But luckily when I grew up a little more I knew that it would be really annoying to actually be married to a man like that. I needed to marry a man with strong opinions and convictions.

We didn't do everything right, I was too young. I was weak, and we had already waited six years. I would have waited another year. But Slade finally put his foot down. He wouldn't even wait until the end of the summer even though it would have been better in some ways, and looking back it wouldn't be even a noticeable sacrifice. So I understand where people are coming from. I don't hold myself as a model for ANYONE.

But while I am pretty sure no one else really thinks that every 21 year old RM that claims to be stopped dead in their tracks by the cosmic cowboys with the message that they've met THE ONE ACTUALLY really DOES get that message. There is a concept called parsimony, and it is useful in science and many other things: it means that the most likely explanation should be used. Rather than cosmic lightening bolts it is probably true that the RMS get hit with lightening but it is called falling in love, coupled with the excitement of the real possibility of being married soon. This is a very exciting experience. It can really bowl a person over.

And it is my calculation based on the number of people I saw doing exactly the same thing and labeling it in the same way. There is an extremely high percentage of people at BYU who get engaged to a certain person at a certain time in the process. An enormous number of BYU kids get engaged to the first marriageable person they meet after it becomes at least marginally practical for them to get married. THey meet in the fall family home evening group. So basically as soon as they are in a certain position in their lives wham the most obvious candidate possible they are engaged to. Of course there are exceptions. And if you did something very different, great.

For example, if people end up doing something that is counterintuitive and feel inspired that GOd is telling them to do it I would say that made a lot of sense. For instance my brother and his wife decided after he got home from his mission that she should maybe go on hers. I would say that that lightening bolt is not just getting hit with the weaky in the kneesies. That is really something. Because if anything I would believe that God is telling people to do things that are hard and involve sacrifice not something that sounds like the shortest line from A to Being married. But I would say eighty percent of girls at BYU that get engaged there do so their sophomore or junior year after moving out of the dorms and for men it happens in the year or two after they get home. At that time they realize that many of their roommates are getting married and nothing is stopping them either. That is when the lightening strikes. Slade and I of course did things abit differently by necessity. And in that six years if we had been way off about each other we probably could have gotten the message even if we were unwilling to deliberately consider it openly. Slade though hates most women so much that

It is very possible that during this tumultuous and exciting time these new and exciting emotions of falling head over heels combined with intense desire and impatience to become a married person very quickly when we didn't just predict it on a calender like everything else in our lives tempt people to use that "cosmic stamp?" I would like to think that it is always harmless for people to think so. I would guess that it is for most people. About the same percentage as the people that make it through red lights. Most peole make it through ok.

But we all see that stamp used when there is no chance it should be. We see sixteen year old girls run off with questionable characters. We see members of the ward who have families run off with people who aren't their spouse, and they claim that they are certain it is the right thing, because, voila, they feel good about it. They claim this for years later. Certainly, people claim, that they wouldn't know what to do without say the children that are products of these relationships. What would I do without little Timmy? Even though his father left the picture long ago? Certainly it was for the best?

But the thing is, and this is where psychology comes in handy. People always think that the way things happened to them is the way that it should have happened. Obviously people are bonded to the people in their lives, but they also get attached to their own pasts. They see certain consequences that are positive and combined with the devil we know vs. devil we don't comfort level, we guess that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. "All is well in Zion."

I have no doubt that people that are happy with their lives are certainly on the winning side of life's lottery. I have no issue with anyone, much less people that are happy. I wish everyone the best. I am certainly not taking potshots at people's lives. That is the last thing I would want to do. It breaks my heart when people have hard times, and it is when these things are avoidable that they are the most heart breaking. As are most of the people who run red lights, most people that tend to come out ok look to their past as the way they should have traveled. Even i they wouldn't suggest it for their child or someone else. And just as people often look to very trivial upsides to marrying before they know their intended (we wouldn't have goten a grant for that year, etc) perhaps people that run red lights and speed can add up the time they save doing it and decide that they are better off, since nothing bad happened.

Possibly. But what about the people who didn't do so well? And that is about half of us. LDS are just below the national average in divorce statistics. Meaning the worse half. That stat is arrived at at a survey of people that self identify as Mormons, placing us only above born again Christians in terms of other religions but worse than Jews and Atheists. And by state Utah fares pretty badly. Utah is 27th worst on a list of 51 states plus DC.

Many people squawk about this and claim somehow it isn't true: All is well in Zion. People quote some sort of phantom statistic about temple marriage being better than the other Mormons. Pretty much all of them quote some phantom statistic by some BYU person that who knows how he arrived at it. It is possible that is true, and I have heard it recently in my ward - I hear it about once a year from someone in response to something. I really wish it were true, and I am not totally ruling it out. But the problem with that is that there is no one that tracks that statistic other than The Church. And you can't calculate that info if you don't have access to it, it will be a problem of extreme sample bias. And for whatever reason they may have, the church doesn't release that statistic. At all. Why they don't is anyone's guess, but mine is that it isn't too likely if they aren't releasing it that it is much to crow about.

Why do I think that would be? Is it because of any possibility in my mind that the gospel isn't true? Of COURSE NOT! I certainly want to claim many possible benefits to living the gospel, and many particularly for temple marriage. But it doesn't make my belief in the church or the benefits to living the gospel more credible when I claim allegiance to benefits that I can't demonstrate. And I don't have any obligation to say I believe that the state of Utah is true or even that Mormons are true. The only thing that I am going to have a problem with someone saying is bad is the actual gospel meaning the scriptures and a subset of the actual beliefs in circulation among members.

So in my way of thinking, because I really do want to be able to say there are GOOD things about members of the church (particularly about the gospel and T.Marriages), to explain a marriage statistic with a statistic of just worse than average I am going to need to be willing to acknowledge that there might be some bad things about them, too. I have to. I can't claim that a good thing averaged with another good thing can result in a bad number.

Not, mind you, that I need to acknowledge bad things about the gospel. Well I am still hoping not. Again, people have thought I was being mean and picking on Utah for no good reason. I would love it if I had had great experiences personally with Utah, but I haven't. But that I really don't need to explain because it is subjecting. And not that Utah fans can combat negative subjectivity with positive subjectivity because all subjective experience is just that and none of it is more valid or suggestive than any other. Actually that isn't true because even someone that doesn't believe in the church isn't going to have a problem with my theory that there are one or two decent people in the state. It would be pretty ludicrous to suggest that there aren't. My burden as a believing member is always greater to explain the things that DON'T work about the church than it is for other people to explain that some things do. Because I as a believing member am the one that claims that the church is a value added system. A buch of experiences positive and negative end up with everyone just seeing what they want to see.

But the thing is, stats don't lie. Not good ones. A lot of things can get that subjective treatment. THE STAMP. We can give many different things a mental makeover to make them seem like "All is well in Zion." But then we would be left with a statistic of being below average to account for. An important one. Like the most. If we can't even claim a slightly better marriage record than the natural average, um that is a problem.

There are other statistics in Utah that are below average that I don't care for. I don't care for the proliferation of pyramid schemes in Utah County. And that is hard fact. It isn't just my own subjective experience that everything is all nice and fine. Someone can write off my subjective experience that things in my world are nice and fine, but I have a hard time writing away hard statistics. I even have a hard time writing off other people's subjective experiences, but the statistics are harder. One can say that you can prove anything with stats. And certainly that will preclude their using any statistics of their own, or really ever having the perception that they know anything at all or at least that they can communicate to others beyond the very base minimum subjective experience. Subjective experiences can always be combated with equal and opposite subjectivity so for the purposes of seeing anything other than we want to see they are very poor.

So how do I account for these things and not feel that my religion and culture is under attack? Well, first of all, I feel that religion and culture are two different things. I don't have to explain the state of affairs of a particular county in the United States if the problems there could be a regional culture issue and not an issue with IN GENERAL what happens when people that all live my religion get together to live in one place.

Of course, I would prefer that when people of my religion get together in large numbers that the outcome were DEMONSTRABLY positive to objective parties, and not just good because I think or say that they are good, actually good. But since I can't claim that it is, again, with anything other than "Well I like Utah," at best, I can always say that there are possibly problems with the regional culture there that don't necessarily carry over to my religion in general. Of course most of us think it is possible that the Church may have to relocate to MO, so it may be that already within our own predictions of our future as a people there is the idea that the cultural seat has a few problems that we are hoping to get rid of before things get "officially Zion," so to speak.

But even beyond that I think that if it were possible to point out a cultural trait that perhaps one day we will get rid of as a people that were responsible for all of these things (and more) that that would of course be the most ideal of all possible scenareos. That way we can blame something that we don't particularly need or like and that getting rid of it will significantly help some of the things that happen to our detrement as a people at this time.

In my opinion, the stamp of subjectivity, its frequency of use, and the caution and reason that it prevents us from exercising in important decisions is a candidate for something that getting rid of could significantly assist us as a culture in eliminating these red flag characteristics and try to start moving past these dire statistics.

If we get rid of the desire to every time we happen to think something that doesn't match the evidence we have the impulse to think that we just know we are right anyway, every time it seems that something that we prefer something like living a certain place, doing certain work or anything else that is just a PLAIN PREFERENCE n we say to ourselves and others that we 'just feel right about it,' and when we desperately want something very exciting like to get married right away to someone we just met we say that in the face of all reason of our own or others' we know that it is the right thing.

I am not saying that we give up having preferences. We can all want to do things and do them. We can all still like who we like and marry who we want. But the ease at which we all feel that we can stamp the cosmos' approval on actions that are at best personal desires and at worst baser impulses of the natural man is a dangerous thing. They are how we eliminate reason and accountability from the equation in important decisions in our lives. They are the way we do what we want to do and at the same time get to feel like all we have to do is what comes naturally or by preference and we get to tell others in sacrament meeting that we are so in tuned with the cosmos that it orders our every action to the letter.

And certainly there are things where these things are harmless. When people talk in S Meeting about how God told them when to change their water pump, that's certainly nice. But most of us are pretty sure that when it happens to someone else we don't have any actual sense that it is anything more than their own impression. Probably harmless.

But a lot of things enter into this practice that aren't harmless. Of course when we see people switch spouses in the ward and it is easy for them to say that they are just listening to what God wants them to do we know that there might be a problem. I am pretty sure that when I got sealed in the temple it was with the understanding that if I listened to anything telling me to be with someone else that it wouldn't be God. Or he would have tried pretty hard to tell me to perhaps wait and not be so rash in marrying, I have faith.

And also one thing that enters into it is judging others. Perhaps I like to read a lot and someone else likes to sew. That is what's called a preference. But so often I hear it called "What I like is righteous and what someone else likes isn't." I see other preferences such as whether I like someone become easy to want to try to justify through the cosmos. Perhaps someone doesn't like me. That is what's called a preference. But when someone thinks that they dont just want to admit that they randomly don't like me, that there must be some cosmic justification for someone's not liking me, it is an easy step for that person to take to the subjectivity stamp: I don't like someone for a reason. Probably because they're inferior.

I would in general like to, not encourage anyone to live differently than they want to live. I have my preferences, the things I think that I should do with my life, and the things I think make sense. And I encourage everyone else to have theirs.

But there is that little phrase that the scriptures often use about knowing something in our hearts AND in our minds. Perhaps the scriptures are encouraging checks and balances. Perhaps it should also be a warning if it seems as a people we seem to always be making decisions with one or the other. Particularly with our emotions, because there will be no limit to the kinds of things we do that will have the stamp of the right thing if we have no aspiration to anything other than whether it feels good.

The King Kong syndrome

The story of King Kong, while a cheesy and campy snapshot from pop culture, serves as a nearly perfect moral allegory. The story itself has exquisite dramatic possibilities. The village has a strange and terrible problem with a VERY unfortunate solution: to save themselves and others they must strap a poor helpless sacrifice to a pole where she will meet her terrifying and agonizing death via Kong. And it almost steems like a practical choice to avoid further problems with the ape.

But in a less Machiavellian and calculating view of the world, what the villagers are doing is at the very least acting out the famous quote by Edmund Burke:

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Evil in this allegorical story triumphs actually because of the people who assist Kong certainly, but more generally because of the whole system that is organized around maintaining the monster's minimum victim requirements. There are those that accept the situation and others that actively participate. This is extremely illustrative of what happens in just about every case of accepting and being an accessory to evil that I can think of: within societies, businesses, social groups and families.

Moral instruction only works (and I am sure that is one of the limitations of it) when we are humble enough to consider weaknesses. That is why say the story of the ten virgins is said to be directed at church members and not the culture as a whole because the church members are the ones reading the scriptures in the first place to hopefully see themselves there. And if we are Kong it is probably too much to expect that we would drop our malicious ways. That is why I feel like the most interesting characters in the KK story are the villagers. They have to decide whether to aid and abet it or try and sacrifice doing something about it. There are ten things in my opinion that keep the villagers happily helping the giant monkey boy instead of trying to save the victim:

1. In the face of scary mean victimizers (or evil or whatever the analogy is), most of the time we help Kong get someone else because we are simply so glad that it isn't coming for us.

2. Perhaps in some cases we think that there is something about us that earns us the privilege of not being chosen for lunch.

or

3. Perhaps those who become victims bring it on themselves.

So perhaps that person that is mean to someone else (King Kong) likes us because of how much better we are than the one that is the target of their meanness. But of course there could be no reason why Kong should want to be mean to others so there should be no reason that makes us deserving of escape. So villagers justify themselves being lucky and escaping meanness from mean people based on what they know is faulty logic. Mean people don't have reasons to be mean any more than they have to be nice to the people they aren't mean to.

But that doesn't prevent the beginning of creating a wishful-thinking version of the cosmos as we usually do. As we usually do we assume that things should happen the way we want to us, including having mean people be somehow magically nice to us instead of others without really knowing why we got so lucky because we understand that the fates would just happen to be on our side, and that God or the stars or whatever tolerate misfortunes when they happen others but intervene with Kong to keep him from getting us and ours.

Perhaps we even feel fine benefiting from Kong's increased capacity to be nice to us because they don't have to share their niceness with others, after all...

4. It isn't our fault. Anyway, what could we really DO about it if people are going be that way anyway? Kong will keep coming. We are powerless to stop him from coming at least by ourselves. We might as well at least enjoy the fact that Kong likes us, right?

But even if someone wouldn't be disturbed by the idea of cooperating with Kong even if they can be nice to us even though they are mean to others. Even if Kong is only turning their wrath elsewhere, the cost is certainly prohibitive. The cost is that we have behaved cooperatively with some pretty horrible stuff that we would feel bad if we ourselves or loved ones got the short end of.

That is rare in literature if you think about it. It is rare for antagonists in a story to have their side portrayed so sympathetically in such a way that we think we might under the right circumstances do the same thing. We don't for example view ourselves as the Wicked Queen in Snow Shite or as Thomas Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons.

5. But in this case strangely many of us say, well I would probably do the same thing after all what would be the point of NOT doing it?

And it is not really surprising when you think about it because it is exactly what we actually DO do practically the same non dramatic equivalent on a regular basis. What one of us doesn't for instance feel fine practically about people victimized in other countries without us intervening on the national scale or in our social situations we see no use in weighing in when someone in our work office or families are hurt by someone who is malicious, feeling superior, or even just indifferent? We actually many times help the situation for the perpetrator of these crimes in very real ways.

6. We tell ourselves that our obligation is to not take sides or make object because that would make things even more 'contentious.' As if we have a responsibility to Kong to get along with him by LETTING him be mean without interferng. After all what good would it really do to stand up for the innocent because how much could we ever change anyone's hearts or actions? People don't change, right?

The answer is, in many ways that's really not true, they do change, and particularly they change when they test the social wind and it ever blows against them. If people sense that there is a reduced tolerance of what they are doing they will often stop. Many people gauge their responses and stop their malicious or inappropriate behavior just short of what will get them in trouble with the particular people they care about. Since people have a reduced sensitivity to what happens to others versus what happens to them personally Kong can interact widely in the world with much of his meanness only being perceived by the victims.

Many things continue therefore only because they know that at least a bare minimum of the people around them will accept it. Specifics of this include the level of sexual morality in society that will deteriorate rapidly when the behavior in question is accepted by the larger culture. How many marriages and children then become victims, not just directly to immorality but indirectly because the rest of us stand by and watch? That means that in a very real way we create the evil by accepting it.

7. Well if I take sides it won't be fair even if I side with the victim. I should remain neutral even when it is obvious there is a victim

The thought that the victim might actually defend themselves or that someone ELSE unspecified should defend an innocent victim is often not a good solution. Very likely just as in Kong it probably is not ever a fair fight. She could never defend herself.

It is also very likely the case that those who already find themselves as victims also have no defenders. Bullies in the school yard as we all remember very rarely pick on those in the best position to defend themselves. Kong and human bullies tend to gang up on people who are weak and friendless already. People are rarely eager unfortunately to be friends to the friendless, they more often climb over each other to be friends to the people that already have the most and leave the weak alone to fend for themselves against Kong. In fact many that are the most sensitive to

8. We assist Kong by criticizing victims for defending themselves.

No one punishes bad behavior like they punish the people that point out bad behavior in others. Even if people are saying hey Kong is being mean to me, that person will be blamed for the situation. It is just a sad reality.

9. People don't help because of stander by effect - nothing I do could help and I am sure someone will get involved if someone really needs help (the reason why people are attacked and killed in plain daylight with people watching).

We all know those movies in the classroom where no one will raise their hand until everyone else does and then it does little good. People need the greatest amount of defending when there is no one doing any not when there are many already doing it, and of course that is when no one will.

10. Kong is going to whomp on me himself if I do anything.

True. And this is the most immobilizing one of all for the standby er. Often the consequences to those who would fight evil are dire and there isn't anything that can be done about it. In fact it is probably only a Hollywood ending when ultimately something as powerful as King Kong gets fought and conquered. But considering the examples of some of the actual dramas where this has played out for real, God may be ok with a culture even being nearly destroyed if need be (and there are many precedents of it actually BEING destroyed) rather than wanting that same culture to institutionally justify the most despicable possible behaviors.

How excited is God most likely if when a King Kong syndrome exists (a terrible evil that is in an organized fashion aided and abetted by the rest of the village), and that village in turn thinks they are doing the right thing by playing it easy and not doing something to fight Kong? Not good. In fact it is a true horror story. And it isn't pleasant to think about what this means for us practically, but God might be fine with the fact that many of us will actually suffer trying to fight evil.

You mean God doesn't just want us to do the things that we 'feel really good about?' and the things that make us really happy and content like only being nice to the people that we like and don't need our help much anyway? Probably not, really, I mean what would be the precedent to think so? Not the New Testament anyway, where we clearly don't get credit for giving service to those to whom service comes naturally. Most of the Book of Mormon prophets lost everything doing God's will and I am not sure what is so different about our day that would mean that God's will for us is to order pizza and watch videos with buddies or whatever else we think is our idea of an easy fun time. He clearly expects us to and has used many a sacrifice of innocent people to assist Him in fighting Kong's various manifestations.

And how could it possibly be the case that God would be fine with evil surviving and thriving undisturbed because it would mean that that the rest of us wouldn't just be able to stay as much as possible in our comfort zones? It would certainly be ludicrous to think that. But it is very common for people to calculate that God wants them personally to do what is most comfortable to them: God wants this because it is the best for me. God wants it because I want it and it makes me happy. Therefore we declare what we want God's will and end up with what we want and feeling righteous for doing it. But I think it is very likely that the number of times when it is actually true that God sees things sympathetically to our own way of thinking at least if that way of thinking allows a great level of evil or victimization is not a big number.

So, I have some work to do but this is the germination here for a moral allegory along the lines of Pilgrim's progress wit a modern day pop culture icon, which is helpful for youth and things like that when they are developed usefully, if I get busy and work it through. Of course I have no idea whether the creators of this story or this cultural icon meant any deep significance by it. But this simple image is somehow a fantastic allegory of Edmund Burke's famous assessment. It is in many ways, however, a disturbingly pessimistic one: Evil will probably triumph much of the time because of how powerful it is and how many people it has helping.

But the implication and moral of this story is clear to. Evil can be fought. Certainly not easily, and not without great cost to us personally. We will probably much more of the time make the calculations of the villagers that even when we see evil and its innocent victims that perhaps the cost to the rest of us of fighting evil would be worse than the status quo. But the cost of not fighting it, to all of us, is clearly much worse, not only in real terms but in poetic ones. It is the cost of knowing that evil exists with us all of us as accomplices even when it gets that clear and extreme. What one of us really wants to make sure that the waters are smoothed over in a world like that?